Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #1Review

Share.

Howard the Duck aims to teach Man-Thing the power of Quack-Fu.

By Jesse Schedeen

Fear Itself: Fearsome Four begins with a clever premise. With fear running rampant in the Marvel Universe, Man-Thing suddenly has an entire planet full of people just waiting to burn at his touch. It's enough to drive any dimension-hopping swamp monster batty. Between this and the return of Howard the Duck, Fearsome Four should by all rights be the greatest thing on the stands this week.

Sadly, the first issue never offers much beyond that initial premise. There's no team dynamic at work because the four heroes quite literally bump into each other on the street and decide to fight a common enemy. There's no indication this book would play out any differently if the Fearsome Four included Wolverine or H.E.R.B.I.E. or Squirrel Girl or Rom the Space Knight or any other random Marvel hero. It's hard to invest oneself in the story when there isn't much emotional appeal to be had.

The book also suffers because the tone wavers fairly often between dark and serious and light and quirky. Nighthawk's solo scenes suggests this book wants to be a deep character study, while Howard the Duck's very presence suggest the quickest way to end Fear Itself is to Quack-Fu the Serpent right in the face. Either approach has its merits, and one of the book's primary failings so far is that it doesn't pick one or the other. It's neither consistently dramatic nor comedic enough to pass muster.

The combination of artists Michael Kaluta, Ryan Bodenheim, and Simon Bisley also adds to the jumbled feel. Bisley's exaggerated work at least fits the nightmarish landscape. Kaluta's scratchy pencils and Bodenheim's more refined pages are constantly at war with each other. As with the script, the series would be better off sticking with one visual approach or the other. Either way, Fear Itself: Fearsome Four needs to find its voice and its team dynamic soon.